


Pins & Needles

by KIBITZER



Category: RWBY
Genre: Gen, Sewing needles, awful people being awful to each other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-24
Updated: 2015-10-24
Packaged: 2018-04-27 19:36:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,415
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5061340
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KIBITZER/pseuds/KIBITZER
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They called her a witch. They called her sorceress, immortal, conjurer, mage. The powers of a human soul was her domain, her craft. Glynda finds herself trapped; a mistake, on the part of whoever thought they could bind a witch.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pins & Needles

**Author's Note:**

> 'I am a huntress who delights in eating the offal of her prey.'

The first thing that became apparent through the fog was the feeling of something warm and thick dribbling its way over her lips, down her chin, pooling around the curves of her jawbone before dripping off in thick globs. Everything was dim, hazy, her mind spinning slowly, too slowly for her profession. Gradually, the dull ache of her muscles faded back into perception. Glynda felt her own breath, warm and heavy – with her head turned down, slumped over, she could feel her breath on her blood-flecked chest. She remained motionless, focusing only on her breathing, waiting for her mind to clear and her senses return so that she could start figuring out how to get out of this.

A throbbing pain cut through the fog. Her hands. Right. They were pinned above her head, holding her body up in some parody of upright sitting. Pinned to the wall, ribbons and needles and knives. Only an inch or so apart, close enough that her shoulders and upper arms held her head mostly in place. Her fingers twitched, and she could feel the resistance of dry blood and needles. Her thumbs grazed one another. That was all she could do. She was kneeling, legs tucked under her. They weren’t bound.

Her headache and her pierced hands struggled for her attention, both hurting more by the second. Underneath those alarms, the muscles in her arms and abdomen were a constant aching, lower, deeper in her body, but just as insistent. And underneath all of that, behind all of those aches demanding her attention, was the hungry exhaustion that signaled the worst: all her Aura was spent. Even tied up, she could have done something useful if she had her magic. But when she tried to draw on it, to soothe away her pains or try to clear her mind, nothing but a silent, painful void met her. Her body craved rest. In the places she usually drew strength, where she felt magic weave itself into her blood, there was now only blind hunger.

It wouldn’t kill her. She knew that. Some fighters extinguished themselves and simply died when they ran completely out of Aura. Most low-level warriors would die if they spent themselves this much. And most of her own peers would need at least a few days’ rest to recover. Something vicious about magic: if you pushed it too far, it would take what it needed from your body. She had heard stories of young, reckless warriors who used up all their strength, only to have their screaming bodies turned into empty husks as their Auras struggled to keep up. Nourishments, fat deposits, veins and blood, anything that could be taken and repurposed was absorbed.

Glynda Goodwitch was not like them. When hunger joined her blood instead of magic, it didn’t kill her. Hunger lived in her bones and sucked at the marrow, but it made no difference to her. She had been hungry since she had been born.

Slowly, she raised her head, keeping her eyes closed. She drew in a steady breath, through her mouth. Her nose was bleeding. Full of blood. Blocked. For now. She opened her eyes, and the world was impossible to make sense of for a moment. Her eyes strained. She realized her glasses were broken, one lens shattered across the middle, splitting her vision with a cruel jagged line. The other lens was missing. She closed one of her eyes, looking only through the broken lens. Better than nothing.

She was in some kind of underground place, judging by the vibration of sound from above and the earthy nature of the room. The floor was hard-packed dirt, the walls rough cement. There was no furniture. On the ceiling, a single lightbulb cast a weak yellow light into the room, its power cord stapled loosely to the roof and wall. She saw a staircase, a trail of blood painting each of the steps and then leading to her. It was her blood.

She laughed. Openly, honestly. Ribbons and needles and knives cut deeper into her hands. Truly, there was nothing she could do, not in her current state. Glynda was amazed at how thoroughly she was stuck. Whoever did this knew what they were dealing with, and they had the power to set that knowledge into practical use.

Good. This wouldn’t be fun otherwise.

As carefully as possible, without jolting her now freshly bleeding hands more than she could help, she shifted her legs. Even just moving her lower body was a labor, but it was the easy part. She closed her eyes again, needing introspection, needing existential isolation. She pulled her knees up. Leaned her forehead against them.

She was the best Aura combatant in the nation. They called her a witch. They called her sorceress, immortal, conjurer, mage. The powers of a human soul was her domain, her craft. She was a teacher, but did and felt things that were impossible to teach. They called her a monster, a demon, an impossibility. They would have her tied in ribbons, would have her hands bound behind her back if they could. But they knew that no bond, magical or technological, could restrain a witch.

And Glynda knew that, too. And she knew that neither could these needles and knives that held her now. It was clear fact in her head. She just needed a little bit of time.

She also knew that she wasn’t immortal, not truly. She was just difficult to kill. Maybe the most difficult of any living thing. But she knew it wasn’t impossible, from the way her body sang with the approach of danger every time she was wounded, from the way her brain hazed and flickered when she lost too much blood. She knew the signs of death’s stride. She had seen many more deaths than she could count. She had held hands that went limp, had wiped tears that went cold, she had herself rained destruction on people and Grimm alike. She knew what death looked like. She knew that she was not immune.

Glynda opened her eyes. She only saw the fabric of her skirt, torn lace trims and stained bloody cloth. She knew death, and its footprints fed the hunger in her bones. A true witch, the deathbringer, maybe even death personified. That was what she was. And the more she focused, the more strength she felt, slowly stirring in her blood.

An absolute monster. Nothing got her heart racing like the smell of blood, the knowledge that she was followed by the shadow of decay and misery. Glynda smiled. Her nose had stopped bleeding, at last.

She was getting too old for this.

Breathing in and out with deep, evenly paced breaths, she focused on the small nugget of magic that had blossomed. Like parasitic flowers, a rose sprouting its thorny existence out of the space between her ribs, this small spark flourished. All she had to do was gently raise it, keep prodding it and trying to summon more from it than it was capable of. And it would grow, faster than anyone could imagine, thorns shooting out, bleeding her insides dry in its despair.

There was a reason she was feared. She wielded what seemed to be an impossible amount of energy, too much to reasonably be contained within a single soul, and she did it effortlessly. The second part to the nightmare was that even when she was completely spent, it would not take long for her to recover. A machine, she mused. It was as though her body lived for nothing but battle. A human machine with a single purpose.

Her soul was filled to the brim with absurdly powerful magic. She loved every second of it. She knew it was scary, too. The small seed of Aura in the depths of her soul was trembling as if afraid, and she urged it on, not spending it but threatening to. More. She needed more. Her body was growing colder, as it usually did – blood and muscles all centering their focus around the small, budding thing, heating and protecting _that_ rather than her physical form.

Maybe she was a hollow thing, only fertile earth for her poison flowers and nothing else. Maybe the rot-smelling pollen was all there was to her. Maybe someone would, some day in the future, manage to kill her, and split her open for good measure. To make sure she was really dead. And maybe they wouldn’t find anything inside, nothing but browned, limp, rotting leaves and petals, and thorns that still hungered for blood even in their host’s demise.

If her arms had been free, she would have put them around her knees. Sometimes, the best way to gather strength was to shut the outside world out and get comfortable.

A single needle dropped to the floor with a high, tinny noise. Then another one. They were long, but still just regular sewing needles. Her flesh closed where it had pushed the needles out.

Admittedly, she didn’t fully understand the practical purpose of all these needles and knives. The ribbon was fair enough, she suspected it tied her hands to the ceiling or a hook on the wall above – she’d know more certainly once she got rid of all the distractions. But the knives nailing her to the wall seemed superfluous. Finally, the needles jabbed all the way into the bones of her fingers and palms just seemed to add insult to injury. Almost like a challenge.

She had thought from the beginning that this would be fun. Glynda’s spine tingled with excitement. Whoever did this knew what they were dealing with, but most importantly, they were just as beastly as Glynda. Maybe this really was a game. All things considered, they hadn’t killed her when they clearly had the chance. Glynda smiled. Error.

Five needles were expelled from her hands in one burst, scattering on the floor around her. She kept her head down, on her knees. Kept her knees close to her chest. Curling in on herself like a child. The holes in her flesh sealed themselves, a lot slower than if she had been at full power, but nonetheless. Glynda hummed a short, repetitive tune to keep her focus. Anyone listening in on the room would never have thought she was dislodging sewing needles from her palms.

Of course she felt pain, even now. But she was above pain. It couldn’t touch her like it did her peers. Glynda knew how to grit her teeth and bear it – she knew it so well that it wasn’t difficult anymore, wasn’t even a conscious effort. Pain was distraction. Pain was merely a signal. Pain was irrelevant.

Three more needles shot free of her skin. So far, she had used a gentle pull of magic to remove ten long, skinny needles from her palms, five from each hand. Some of them had gone all the way through, slipping between her bones and almost touching the wall behind her hands. Some had stopped at the bone. Most of them were in the fleshy bits, though one or two remained in the center of each of her hands. And then the fingers. She divided up the work as if it was simple schoolwork. She hummed. And she smiled.

She was using very little magic compared to what she was gaining back. It had picked up its momentum now, using tiny bits of Aura to feed the hunger and make more. The more she had, the faster she would recover even more. Her blood was hot in her veins as she worked, millimeter by millimeter edging metal out of herself.

All at once, the remaining fourteen needles from her palms were expelled, a chorus of small tings across the floor as they fell. The holes sealed themselves.

Glynda drew in a long, deep breath. When she let it back out, 30 needles left their spots – three in each of her fingers, a meticulously even placement. She opened her eye, lifting her head to look around. Fifty-four long sewing needles were strewn in a half-circle around her, all of them coated almost to their eyes in blood.

Now, there was the matter of knives. One knife stabbed through each of her hands, pinning her to the wall, driven into the stone itself. They were quite a bit larger than the needles, but Glynda could only manage a four-note hum and a smile. The ribbons she was bound with, silken and caked in dry blood, wrapped around her wrists, then the knife handles, then once around the bottom of her fingers before disappearing upwards to a place beyond her senses. The knives were tied in place to her hands, and they resisted her push. A bit more difficult. One corner of her mouth dropped slightly.

Still, with the needles out of the way, she had a little more room for movement with just her fingers. Her left hand curled into a fist, fingers closing around the ribbon, tucking the blade of the knife between the knuckles of her ring and middle fingers. She held it fast there and pushed her hand away from the wall.

Nothing happened for a few seconds. Then the wall seemed to give, a grinding noise signaling the emergence of the blade. Since she was holding on to it, the blade happily came away from the wall, with ribbon and all. Come on. She was smarter than that. Surely whoever put that in place expected more of her. Glynda used first her knuckles and then all of her fingers to slide the blade manually out of her hand, no magic this time. Slowly, but surely, the slick blade came free. Once it sprang free of its bloody sheath, the ribbon slacked around it, and the knife fell from its place. It fell right towards her, but Glynda magically deflected it from its path with ease, letting it clatter to the floor next to her.

With a little more slack, she didn’t have to keep her left arm stretched straight. She let it fall limp, still suspended above her head by the ribbon, but not too far. She couldn’t reach the knife, but that didn’t matter to Glynda. She leaned her head back, resting against the wall, as an invisible force lifted up the dagger. The ribbon that held her left hand was cut. She let her arm and the knife both fall. Her arm was pale and tired, but she wasn’t done yet. Still, she allowed a moment of rest.

She heard a door, distant but close enough to be in the same building as she was. Then, footsteps. Above her. Another door, much nearer. And someone was coming down the stairs. They didn’t bother hiding their presence. Ergo, Glynda thought, they must not be afraid. Error.

 _Now_ this would get interesting. Glynda got her feet under her and reached up, grabbing the second knife with her now free hand. Yanking it loose effortlessly, she let the knife fall to the floor. The ribbon on her right hand held fast, but there was no more time.

A woman stood on the opposite side of the room. She stood perfectly still, as though frozen in time, upright and proud. Her head cocked a little too arrogantly, but her body showing no overconfidence, only absolute control. Something about the way she stood was fascinating – Glynda had seen many warrior stances in her time, but this one was so precise, so immaculate, it was almost breathtaking. Even without assuming any particularly offensive stance, the woman looked ready to strike – perfectly calm, but on the brink of action, both in the same moment. Her black hair fell in her face, obscuring most of her features, but one bright yellow eye stared unblinking at Glynda – and that was all she needed to see. That wasn’t the look of someone who was _surprised_ to see Glynda getting free.

The woman smiled. It didn’t reach her eyes. Nothing but the rotten smile of a predator.

Glynda needed only her eye and smile to recognize her, though she had only seen pictures. High-priority enemy, do not engage without competency of or equal to at least ten years’ post-graduation experience, but eliminate on sight if able.

Cinder smiled. Glynda thrust one of her feet out for better footing, bracing against the ground before sweeping her left hand through a magnificent arc. Specks of blood flicked from her fingertips, still gushing from the hole in her palm. Fifty-four sharp, blood-slicked sewing needles shot up from the floor, aimed at that yellow glint. Glynda wasn’t back to full potential yet, but she could do this much, she was strong even at less than half her usual. In a move almost invisible to the human eye, Cinder weaved out of harm’s way, approaching and dodging in the same move. She closed in. Error.

Fire swelled at her fingertips and spilled from her lips, but Glynda was unfazed, cold as the steel of the knives she lifted. The blades shot themselves at Cinder, one whizzing past her and only clipping strands of hair as she dodged. The second blade she deflected with her hand, a brief flash of fire and Aura sending the knife off its course.

A professor, a huntress, and a killing machine, Glynda was not one to be caught off guard by a simple deflect, no matter how flashy. She closed her right fist – which was gushing blood without inhibition, thanks to the strain – around the ribbon still attached to her wrist. It was immediately warm and wet with blood. She had to trust the ribbon and the hook to hold her weight. Calculated risk.

She would show this fire witch every reason why Glynda Goodwitch was the name that invoked the most fear and reverence, not Cinder Fall.

Cinder wanted a fight. She wanted a head-on, one-on-one fight. She wanted Glynda to go hand to hand with her. Cinder wanted her full of pride and limitations, as predictable as honorable fighters were – she wanted her without tricks, without dirty play. Glynda had other plans.

The ribbon pulled tight in her hand, she waited until the last possible moment of Cinder’s charge before lifting herself up just enough to clear the floor and kicking off the wall. While hanging free, she focused the might of her half-reduced powers on Cinder.

In a tournament, the crowd would have gasped, and then frowned. No weapons. No proxies. Glynda’s telekinesis smashed Cinder against the wall with a dull thud, while the force pushed Glynda away from it. Still, gravity is gravity, and Glynda was brought back to her starting place. Her knee rammed into Cinder’s back, knocking the wind out of her. The fire witch was training her shallow breath to be less irregular and heaving, to make it as if she wasn’t struggling for air, biting back coughs. Glynda grabbed her hand in her own free left hand, pinning Cinder Fall against the blood-stained wall.

Blood ran fresh down Cinder’s arm from Glynda’s wound. She could feel the forces bristling under Cinder’s skin. She stayed there, knee digging into the other woman’s back, hanging from a ribbon and a hook that Cinder herself put there. She could feel magic ebb and flow under her fingers. The fire had gone out, but Cinder’s skin was still searing hot. Glynda felt a magical capacity much like her own.

Cinder’s cheek pressed against the wall and she stared back at Glynda. Glynda wished there had been poison in her eyes, or even something as tame as anger, but there was nothing. Nothing at all. She wasn’t struggling, even though Glynda knew from just holding her that she could easily break free. There was strength in her, and hellfire, and magic.

They called Cinder sulfur. They called her charcoal, wrath, pain, and witch.

Glynda looked into her eyes and saw nothing. She knew all too well that her own eyes reflected the exact same expression. There was nothing inside of Cinder but rotting flowers and hellfire. She was hollow and cold. She had no fear. She didn’t struggle, because she was not trapped. She was excited, in the way hollow creatures get, with their spines crawling full of magic and their nostrils twitching for the scent of blood.

Cinder smiled. Error. Glynda realized, a little too late, that this _had_ been a game – but it hadn’t been for Glynda’s sake.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Offal Hunt](https://archiveofourown.org/works/5127026) by [KIBITZER](https://archiveofourown.org/users/KIBITZER/pseuds/KIBITZER), [lionsenpai](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lionsenpai/pseuds/lionsenpai)




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